Current Issues in Tourism
Editor: C. Michael Hall (Department of Management, College of Business and Economics, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand) and Chris Cooper (Foundation Professor of Tourism, University of Queensland, Australia) Michael and Chris are joint editor of the book series Aspects of Tourism. Reviews Editor John Jenkins (University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia)
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Volume: 5 Number: 1 Page: 22–32
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Adventure Sports and Tourism in the French Mountains: Dynamics of Change and Challenges for Sustainable Development
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Philippe Bourdeau, Jean Corneloup and Pascal Mao
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Despite their historical links, there have always been profound contradictions in the relationship between sport and tourism in France and Europe in terms of behaviour and development models. The end of
the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s marked a certain narrowing of this divide, with a gradual blurring of the boundaries between tourism and sport, and an increasing hybridisation of activities and
reference models. This change was due on the one hand to the increasing demand for 'active tourism', breaking with the cultural and geographical conformism of conventional holidays and trips, and on the
other hand to the appearance of 'leisure sports' held in new esteem following the development of a whole range of new or revived activities (climbing, mountain biking, canyoning, parascending, rafting,
hydrospeed), which no longer resisted 'touristification.' In this process, the crisis which affected winter sports in France during the second half of the 1980s played a far from negligible role by stimulating
a systematic search for diversification in the supply of tourism 'products', with respect both to seasonal aspects and to the target clientele and activities. Thus, while a crisis was shaking the foundations,
the renewal in the supply of leisure sports was contributing to a revival of mountain tourism, particularly in the summer. The result of this upheaval was that leisure sports, which until then had been
largely marginal to tourism, were placed at the very centre of the touristic system.
© Multilingual Matters 2002
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